


Together Alone

by honey_wheeler



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hints of future cousin/half-sibling incest, Spoilers Through S07E05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 10:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11827122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: He’s been gone for so many moons that Sansa has lost track and must count back through the days to be sure. His messages have been brief and infrequent; whether it’s a good sign or a bad one, Sansa is never sure. She hadn’t thought to miss him so much, the brother she’d never been close to as a girl. Perhaps it’s only that Bran is so unlike the Bran she knew, that Arya is unlike herself in much the same way. Her heart aches with love for them even as she must relearn them as new people, people who have lived and seen and grown in strange ways, as Sansa herself has done. For all that Jon has been through much as well, he seems nearly the same Jon that Sansa’s always remembered, still honest and pig-headed and idealistic to the point of lunacy.She hadn’t realized how much she’d been relying on that until he was gone.





	Together Alone

The Godswood always seems quiet, even though it’s anything but. As a girl, Sansa always had a queer sense that it was almost alive, the leaves perpetually rustling like the murmur of barely heard voices, the wind feeling nearly wild even without a trace of a storm on the horizon. If she’d been more inclined to her father’s gods, rather than cleaving innocently to the faith of her mother, she might have thought those old gods were what inhabited the wood and brought it to life, always making her feel as if she were being watched by someone unseen. It had made her uncomfortable as a girl. She’d been so young then. Younger than she should have been.

The leaves still rustle and the wind blows yet, but the Godswood is entirely absent the voices of men, so to Sansa’s relief, it seems as quiet as a tomb.

Ghost pads along beside her, as quiet as the wood, as curiously alive despite his silence. She’s never heard him howl or bark or even growl. Only his breathing gives voice to his thoughts and moods, the alert huff when strangers approach, the contented sigh when they’re alone in Sansa’s chambers at night, the curious sniffs as they walk through the snowy woods together in the hour just past dawn. It’s exactly the sort of company Sansa needs. The relief of being among her own people after years surrounded by strangers and enemies is keen, but sometimes the greatest relief is being around no one at all. No one save Ghost, who reminds her enough of her Lady to be reassuring, but not so much to be painful.

And who reminds her, in a more complex fashion, of Jon.

He’s been gone for so many moons that Sansa has lost track and must count back through the days to be sure. His messages have been brief and infrequent; whether it’s a good sign or a bad one, Sansa is never sure. She hadn’t thought to miss him so much, the brother she’d never been close to as a girl. Perhaps it’s only that Bran is so unlike the Bran she knew, that Arya is unlike herself in much the same way. Her heart aches with love for them even as she must relearn them as new people, people who have lived and seen and grown in strange ways, as Sansa herself has done. For all that Jon has been through much as well, he seems nearly the same Jon that Sansa’s always remembered, still honest and pig-headed and idealistic to the point of lunacy.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d been relying on that until he was gone.

Ghost’s breath huffs and he comes alert next to her, as if he’s seen a hare or some other creature off among the brush. Sansa places a hand on his back. He’s big enough that she has to raise her hand to reach; if he stood on his hind legs, he would tower above her. It’s a strange thing, when for so long, Sansa’s only memories of the wolves had been when they were little more than puppies. Lady had been no bigger than a large dog when Sansa had lost her.

Her hand on Ghost’s spine, Sansa waits to see if he’ll sprint away from her to catch some small beast or another. His body remains relaxed, though. When Sansa had first seen him at Castle Black, he’d been far too lean, his ribs under his coat feeling like hills and valleys to her fingers, his spine like a mountain range. Even a direwolf was hard-pressed to find enough food at a place like the Wall, it seemed. She’s fattened him up since then, saving him bits of the choicest meats, sometimes feeding him from her fingers at the table – much to the wide-eyed shock of the bannermen and knights gathered for the meal – and though he’s still lean, his bones are only the barest ridges under her hand now, and Sansa feels as pleased as a mother hen with a thriving chick. Jon had left him here to take care of her, but Sansa has taken care of him as well.

“Jon will say you’re getting fat, won’t he?” she says aloud to the wolf, digging her fingers into his ruff and scratching the way she knows he likes. “He’ll say I’ve turned you into a pampered lapdog.” Ghost turns his great head to look at her, tongue lolling out of his mouth a bit, his breath steaming in the cold air. She doesn’t quite remember when she started speaking to him as if he could hear and might answer her, but there’s something comforting in it, something soothing. Truly, he almost looks at her as if he knows her meaning sometimes. 

“You miss him, don’t you?” she murmurs. Something warm and nervous settles low in her belly. She’d never thought Jon would be gone so long. She’d been apart from him for years before this. Strange that a few months would seem longer than all those years put together.

Ghost only stretches his head so that his nose brushes her cheek, almost as if reassuring her. Sansa surrenders to impulse and throws her arms around his neck, burying her face in the coarse silk of his fur and holding him as tightly as she can’t seem to hold anything else.

“He’ll come back, don’t worry,” she says, willing herself to believe the words. Willing them to be true. “He’ll be home soon.”


End file.
